How to create an Infographic: 8 top tips for success

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Especially if you’ve never had much success in the past. So, to help you out, we’ve compiled our 8 top tips for achieving infographic success. Outlook Infographics guide.

 

1. Pick an unexpected topic

Infographics are hardly new, so to stand out, you need to ensure that what you are producing is unique. Unexpected topics are not only new to the reader, but they are also far more effective at catching their attention. You’ll have much more fun creating it and will generate far more buzz and engagement.

2. Bring in an expert

All of the best infographics are backed up by solid evidence. Don’t just make bold claims for the sake of it. And by bringing in an expert on the topic, you will discover intriguing and interesting points to include. Much more so than what you’d discover with a basic Google search.

3. Shape the data

Infographics are very visual. They offer you the chance to relay complex findings in a way that is easy to digest. And the best way to do this is by shaping any data through visual representations. Such as bar graphs, pie charts and any other designs you have in mind.

4. Make it relevant

Make any content 100% relevant to both the topic at hand and your target audience. Infographics aren’t meant to be packed full of data, so you should not have any trouble finding enough information. Once you have it all, include only that and include zero waffle that will bore the reader.

5. Be accurate

Never make bold, unsubstantiated claims or guesses in your infographic. The worst thing that could happen is you get called out on it by a viewer. As such, always try to be completely accurate in anything you say. This is where bringing in an expert helps!

6. Don’t hide the story

Some of the most successful infographics are those which are focused around a core story. This could be based on a personal experience or that of someone else. Then, we’ve your points around this central theme. Following on nicely from this…

7. Use visual storytelling

Remember, it’s not just words that tell a story. Instead, make use of the visual nature of infographics to make your story more realistic and engaging. You could introduce a central design for the infographic and then, as the reader scrolls down, the story is brought to life through imagery.

8. Create something memorable

Last, but certainly not least, your focus should always be on creating something memorable. What use is your infographic if someone scans it once and then forgets what they’re told? Be sure to put in maximum effort towards something you know your audience will love to share and that is visually appealing enough to stick in their minds.

By following each of these 8 tips, you should be well on your way toward producing truly unforgettable infographics. Or, if you’re looking for help with your marketing efforts, then check out our infographic design service.

When is the best time to send your email?

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Statistics from MailChimp, for example, show that the highest click-through rate applies to emails classed as concerning hobbies. In comparison, marketing & advertising email click-through rates are much lower (around 16%). In addition, Omnisend data shows us that the best day for email opening and click-through together is a Thursday, although click-through is highest on a Sunday.

In order to make sense of these sorts of statistics, it’s essential to acquire a good knowledge of your audience, including their buying persona and buying habits. The increased use of mobile phones, changing work habits, and a 24/7 approach to accessing online content means that almost any time can be appropriate to send your message, depending on your audience. Here, we take a look at what to focus on to ensure your email campaign send-outs are as successful as they can be.

What are the habits of your target audience?

An intimate knowledge of the people you want to attract to take advantage of what you’ve got to offer is critical. Use the information you have about your audience to help deduce when they are most likely to be on their devices and have a few spare minutes to check their emails. Studies show that with the rise in accessing the internet through mobile phones, many people are choosing to check their emails as soon as they wake up, or the last thing before sleep. This means that an email sent at 11 pm or 5 am may well stand a good chance of being read, particularly as the competition may wait until more conventional hours in order to send their communication.

Try A/B testing to find discover optimal timing

Discovering the time which works best for your emails can often be achieved through the use of A/B testing. Try sending one-half of your audience emails early in the day, the other half receiving theirs later on. Check the outcomes and then switch your emailing schedule to the time which gets the best response. It’s worth repeating A/B testing periodically, using reduced ‘test percentage’ of your mailing list, as audience habits can shift through time and in response to external variables such as the holiday season, hours of daylight or even the weather!

Have you thought about responsive emails?

Mobile phones are frequently used to access emails and other online content, so it’s vital that your emails are in a format which is suitable for the small screen (responsive emails). Short, exciting titles, concise content, clear calls to action, and a layout that’s easy to follow can all go a long way towards persuading your audience that your email is worth reading. An email sent at an unconventional hour (remember that outside of working hours people are more likely to check emails on their phones than on a desktop or laptop) in a responsive format could well provide the response rate you’re looking for.

When it comes to contemporary email marketing, quirky sending times could well be the key to sustainable success!

Get in touch to see how we can help you boost your email marketing effectiveness.

Tell your story with email marketing

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“Facts tell… stories sell.”
Bryan Eisenberg, NY Times bestselling author

Storytelling allows you to weave your objective into an emotional, sensory experience that makes the reader feel like they are part of the narrative, as opposed to being sold to. It helps overcome buying objections by showing them that you have a connection.

Developing a connection in this way can help you change the conversation away from which is the cheapest to which gives me the confidence that it will work.

 

Bring the reader into your story.

Getting the reader to identify with the protagonist of your story helps set the scene. By showing the protagonist has a problem to solve, the reader realises or begins to believe, they too have a problem that needs solving, and that you have the solution.

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Top tips for good email design

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A powerful ‘hero image’ could be the difference between positive engagement and the junk folder.

Our top tips for improving your email design

1. A good picture is worth 1,000 words 

Borrowing from how we are naturally drawn to pictures, colours, and patterns, a well-designed email can lead your audience on a storytelling journey. A relevant and impactful image, alongside a complementary colour palette and typography, creates an incredibly strong foundation for positive engagement.

2. Get your priorities right

Sticking to a ‘visual hierarchy’ gives you the power over the order in which the reader will process your content. There are a lot of expectations of your hero image, it needs to deliver several potential points of information all at once, it needs to:

  • Control the tone of the email
  • Represent the tone of your company (if you are clinical and direct, or if you are relaxed and humorous)
  • Symbolise the content of the email; i.e., a wacky hero image can set the stage for a very outlandish email design!

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Email marketing: Top tips for improving open rates

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Subject lines – Taking just a fraction of a second to decide if they should give it their time, if the subject line doesn’t immediately capture your audience’s attention, they are more likely to move onto the next message or even just delete it unread. Even though it could be packed with relevant and useful information.

Pre-headers – Email pre-headers are the short summary text between 100-150 characters that follows the subject line in your inbox. It’s a way to get across the purpose of your email in a few words. Usually, if you haven’t selected one, it will pull through the first line of text in your email, which may not get the point across. We would always suggest you create one when setting it up.

A/B testing – A/B testing is a great way of measuring which version of the email message is receiving the best engagement. In basic terms, 10% of the campaign receive option A and 10% receive option B, whichever version gets the best engagement wins and the remaining 80% of the audience get that one. It also lets you understand patterns and trends for future email design.

Our top tips

1. Keep it brief

Short, punchy subject lines under 50 characters are more effective than longer ones. The most effective email campaigns combine the subject line and pre-header to convince the reader to spend time on it. Don’t try and explain your whole product or brand in a subject line, it should excite and entice them to learn more within the email.

2. Be compelling

Create a sense of urgency or sensation, such as a promotional deadline or limited time/stock. However, your audience will be looking for that content when they open the email – so don’t overcomplicate the email’s internal layout or wording causing them to lose interest.

3. Avoid spam triggers

Such as misleading subject lines to get opens, overly sales focused text, using all caps to get emphasis, FW: or RE: in the subject line. They all make it look untrustworthy. Just be honest and appeal to why they subscribed in the first place.

4. Keep it relevant

Emails that contain an announcement, date of an event, or reference to a recent happening will look fresh and original. Out-of-date or vague subject line information about events will undoubtedly end up deleted!

5. Testing is important

Understanding what works before you’ve sent the whole campaign is a great way to boost overall performance. And, from experience, it’s often surprising which one wins in the end.

Interested in getting a higher open rate on your email communications, get it touch to see how we can help.

How to build loyalty in an age of promiscuity

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So, what should you consider when it comes to keeping your customers?

1. Be responsive to change

While the public may be used to the breakneck pace of change in the current marketplace, businesses can often find themselves lagging behind. And when it comes to catching up, it can be easy to blindly make changes that lead to frustrated or confused customers who then abandon their relationship with you. So, how can you be truly responsive to the individual needs of your customer base?

  • Understanding the nature of the change: First, avoid going in ‘both feet first’.
  • Take the time to ask: Is the change right for your business? Does it genuinely address customer concerns? Is it sustainable? And, is it required or just an easy solution?
  • Manage your change: When it comes to course-correcting, remember to implement and document smaller, manageable changes rather than making sweeping adjustments. This allows you to save time, energy, and properly analyse how customer needs are being met.

2. Own your social space

For many businesses, social media is the de-facto voice of your organisation. In this case, taking ‘ownership’ means pursuing a hands-on approach that guarantees loyal customers a responsive, informative experience every time they get in touch.

  • Settle on your tone: If you make one single change, agree on a shared ‘tone’ and ‘voice’ for all messaging. This will help build recognition with consumers and allow ad-hoc messaging to remain on brand and encourage commitment.
  • Give a reason to follow: Providing offers, unique insights, or relevant retweets provide an incentive for consumers to follow and engage. Ensure that your team takes the time to reach out and engage with individuals alongside scheduling the week’s signed off tweets.

3. Deliver a consistent brand experience

When it comes to building trust and loyalty with customers, consistency is key. When individuals know exactly what they’re getting, they can easily start to build their confidence in a product.

So, what steps can you take to ensure a high degree of consistency?

  • Confirm your style: Settle on a style that can be readily applied to all facets of the organisation.
  • Try to think objectively, asking: How will this be perceived? How will the change be rolled out? How much of a departure is this from our previous branding? And, have we tested the impact this will have on the relationship with our customers?
  • Keep up-to-date: Always stay on top of any forthcoming disruptive trends that may come to the marketplace. And when it comes to adopting or incorporating these, always take the time to test and trial; remembering that a change in branding is very costly and difficult to course-correct from.

4. Understand your customer journey

Gaining an appreciation of your customer’s experience with your product or service is commonly overlooked but always essential. This can involve choosing to deploy dedicated UX research, conducting informal site reviews or train members of staff in key design principles.

So, how should you start the process of understanding their journey?

  • Consider the future: Remember that changes in technology will have an impact if your consumers consider your platform reliable. Ensure that all elements of your business are ‘future-proofed’ to prevent changes breaking web pages, disrupting supply chains, or making it hard to communicate.
  • Test and chase: In-house research only reveals so much. Try to engage with customers in providing dependable feedback and always attempt to keep an open mind when addressing critique. Genuine concerns for customers may be invisible to members of staff who are completely familiar with your service.

5. Consider a reward programme

Customer loyalty should never go unrewarded in the contemporary marketplace. Choosing to opt for a reliable brand loyalty programme can easily work as an additional incentive for individuals to interact with your business.

But if you decide on a dependable award programme, what elements should it contain?

  • Construct a two-way street: Award programmes are a great opportunity to ‘double-down’ on a commitment to provide benefits while capturing key information about your customer. This means offering targeted loyalty incentives whilst retaining GDPR compliancy.
  • Provide honest value: Loyalty programs work best when customers are offered genuine benefits or discounts in exchange for their trust. This means that it is often worth taking the time to research and quantify what options may prove the most attractive when drawing in customers.

If you need some help finding a creative way to grow a loyal audience get in touch.

Email marketing: Top tips for better engagement

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If you think you could do better with your email marketing, these top tips may help you get the best results.

1. Be the brand

Make sure that the emails you send feel part of a larger customer experience. Branding, style, and tone should reflect across all channels and be an instant eye-catcher. Be clear, organised, and strong in your identity.

Your emails should feel like an extension of the journey they started with you when they first learned of your brand and the same rules should apply to all your operational/transactional communications as well.

2. Get personal

Bringing through elements of personalisation works well when it’s done correctly. Confidence in your data is essential in personalisation. There is a very good chance your engagement will be poor if you pull through wrong information.

Including personalised offers and messaging gives the reader confidence that you understand what they are interested in and can deliver exactly the things they are looking for.

3. What’s the point?

Be confident in your email strategy, by knowing the answer to the simple question, so what’s the point?

Every email campaign needs a point, understand the action you want the recipient to take to build a stronger, more compelling argument for them to complete the desired action.

  • Make it easy for them to engage
  • Make them feel special
  • Make them feel valued
  • Give them something they can’t get for free, such as premium content.

Keep the subject line simple and concise, over-worded subject lines can look intimidating or boring, losing your hook. Also use intriguing words like: ‘discover’, ‘find out’, and ‘uncover’ to build excitement.

Get the content balance right – it needs to encourage the reader to find out more not leave them confused or give them all the answers.

4. The legal stuff

Obviously, GDPR has played a big part in making email marketing a sensitive subject. You need to have the correct legal basis to contact people. You also need to make sure you give them the opportunity to unsubscribe from future marketing communications.

5. Audience appreciation

There is no best time to send an email anymore, it all depends on the audience and what action you want them to take. Regular but non-intrusive communication is best. Adding preference management and connecting your email marketing to your CRM can let the individual easily control the volume and what they want to hear about. Giving them control can result in a huge increase in engagement.

7. Designed for success

The email’s content, layout and visual cues such as pictures or animations are all important. You want your audience to immerse themselves into your message, like a customer stepping into a shop – make what you have ‘on sale’ appealing. You can do this through a consistent colour scheme, tone, backdrop, and imagery.

Remember, not all images will show in the recipients’ inbox, so make sure the body text of the email gets the message across. Do not become over-reliant on images and media to the point where it corrodes the core text.

Most of all make sure it’s responsive, its estimated 84% of emails are now opened either on a mobile device or via webmail, so not displaying properly on those devices is a big mistake!

If you’re looking for some help to up your email game. Get in touch